VIRTHUALIS

From EuroVR Knowledge Base

Full name: Virtual Reality and Human Factors Applications for Improving Safety
Acronym: VIRTHUALIS
Website: http://www.virthualis.org/
Keywords: industrial safety, VR, HF
Budget: € 9000000
Start date: 2005/05/01
End date: 2009/04/30

Partners

VIRTUAL REALITY & MULTI MEDIA PARK S.P.A, ITALY
BP INTERNATIONAL LTD, UNITED KINGDOM
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF OIL AND GAS PRODUCERS, UNITED KINGDOM
EUROPEAN OIL AND GAS INNOVATION FORUM, BELGIUM
CAPSICOM, FRANCE
SAUF CONSULTING LIMITED, UNITED KINGDOM
PHOSPHORIC FERTILIZERS INDUSTRY S.A., GREECE
SLOVNAFT VURUP, A.S., SLOVAKIA
STATOIL ASA, NORWAY
PETROFINE S.A., BELGIUM
S.C. SADACHIT PRODCOM S.R.L., ROMANIA
CARBID-FOX S.A., ROMANIA
TECNATOM, S.A., SPAIN
INSTITUTE OF COMMUNICATION AND COMPUTER SYSTEMS, GREECE
FRAUNHOFER-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FÖRDERUNG DER ANGEWANDTEN FORSCHUNG E.V., GERMANY
EXIMIA SRL, ITALY
STR SOLUZIONI, ITALY
CENTRE FOR RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY HELLAS, GREECE
UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO, ITALY
THE PROVOST FELLOWS AND SCHOLARS OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY AND UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN, (HEREINAFTER TCD), ÉIRE/IRELAND
UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MODENA E REGGIO EMILIA, ITALY
NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH DEMOKRITOS, GREECE
UNIVERSITE RENE DESCARTES - PARIS 5, FRANCE
LINKÖPINGS UNIVERSITET, SWEDEN
EUROPEAN COMMISSION JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE, BELGIUM
D'APPOLONIA, ITALY
INSTITUT NATIONAL DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT INDUSTRIEL ET DES RISQUES, FRANCE
SLOVAK UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY IN BRATISLAVA, SLOVAKIA
"BABES BOLYAI" UNIVERSITY, ROMANIA
DET NORSKE VERITAS, NORWAY
KITE SOLUTIONS SNC, ITALY
TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF CRETE, GREECE
VTT TECHNICAL RESEARCH CENTRE OF FINLAND, FINLAND
OXON ITALIA SPA, ITALY
MW S.R.L., ITALY
UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI DI MILANO, ITALY
CENTRUM MECHANIZACJI GORNICTWA KOMAG W GLIWICACH, POLAND
NETHERLANDS ORGANISATION FOR APPLIED SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (TNO), NETHERLANDS
LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY, UNITED KINGDOM
RISOE NATIONAL LABORATORY, DENMARK

Funding Bodies

FP6
EU FP6

Contact

GIUSEPPE, Biardi (Professor)
Tel: +39-0223993263
POLITECNICO DI MILANO, DIPARTIMENTO DI CHIMICA, MATERIALI E INGEGNERIA CHIMICA "G. NATTA" Piazza Leonardo da Vinci, 32, ITALY

Objectives

The overall objective of the VIRTHUALIS project is to reduce hazards in production plant and storage sites by addressing end-users’ practical safety issues, such as training control room operators, designing proper alarm systems, training teams to cope with emergencies, assessing the impact of plant modifications on operators’ reliability, helping managers to see the impact of their decisions on sharp-end operators’ daily work, through the development of an innovative technology. The new technology will be achieved by merging Human Factors (HF) knowledge and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies. The innovative character of the VIRTHUALIS technology will be mainly given by the new HF knowledge that will provide both solutions to cope with identified safety-critical issues and the “driving license” to profitably exploit VR technologies. The new HF knowledge will be produced ad hoc to cope with the specific safety case at hand based on the most advanced HF methodological concepts available.

Main Results

The breakthrough offered by the VIRTHUALIS technology relates to the opportunity of moving from static paper-based assessments to dynamic virtual simulations. Safety analyses like HAZOP, FMEA, Fault Tree (FT), Event Tree (ET), Preliminary Hazard Analysis (PHA), Task Analysis (TA), in which critical situations are just imagined by safety analysts, will be moulded in such a way that HF concepts can permeate people’s mind through images. In particular this will allow safety analysts to easily and quickly understand and integrate HF concepts into safety analyses. Indeed, HF issues are difficult to communicate, to understand and to envision due to their complex nature. By immerging sharp-end operators, teams, safety analysts, managers into Virtual Environments (VEs) suitably modelled for the specific analysis to perform, it will be possible to “almost” experience safety-critical situations amplifying people capabilities and enabling them to suitably exploit HF concepts when performing safety analyses. Existing and new HF knowledge, created to cope with the safety case at hand, will be exploited to enable: • operator’s performance tracking and his/her reliability to be measured; • new design alternatives to be conceived and created; • informed safety-critical decisions to be made effectively; • appropriate and effective training programs to be created. This will enable to improve the efficiency of safety production at any of the 7 stages of the production lifecycle, i.e., (1) Exploration & Drilling, (2) Design, (3) Construction, (4) Commissioning, (5) Operation, (6) Maintenance, Repair & Modification, and (7) Decommissioning.

End Users

Evaluation Methodologies

Fill with the evaluation methodologies. Evaluation methods already in the KB can be found in Category:Evaluation Methods

Publications

Application & Research Areas

Training

Technical Areas

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